08/28/2026
Fr. John Piro, our Parish Priest, presented a thought-provoking study on the Image of God within man. Using Scripture as his basis, particularly Genesis 1:26, he explained how man is provided with spiritual gifts that allow us to commune with the Creator. Since mankind is created in the Image of God, we are created with freedom, reason, and ability to freely love God due to our freewill, thus making us different from other creatures.
However, due to our disobedience of God and the ancestral sin of our first parents, the image of God within man has been ‘darkened’. (See Genesis 3:7-10). Therefore, man now has a fallen will and a tendency to sin and turn away from God. The consequence of the Fall was that sin damages and obscures the image, but humanity does not cease to possess the dignity of being created in God’s image.
After referencing several of the Church Fathers, such as St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius, Fr. John concluded with the truth that Jesus Christ is the Perfect Image of God. Referring to Scripture, specifically Colossians 1:15 and John 1:14, Fr. John explained how as Man, Christ is the image in which man was made and toward which we are moving. As such, humans can participate in the divine nature through Christ. Through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, man is restored and perfected. Only through Jesus Christ can humanity, which is created in God’s image, find its true fulfillment. Through Christ, humanity is called not merely to recover what was lost but to grow into its intended destiny.
And what is this destiny? That we are to have communion with God. Man has been created to have a relationship of love with God. As such, the image of God is the dignity and spiritual capacity given to humanity at creation, while the likeness of God within us is the vocation to which humanity is at creation, while the likeness of God within us is the vocation to which humanity is called—to grow in holiness, virtue, and communion with God until we become like Christ.
